Page 104 of Now or Never

“What are your plans for tomorrow?” Ranger asked.

“I’m taking a fruit basket to Harry the Hammer.”

“Babe,” Ranger said. And he hung up.

I remoted the television on and scanned Prime. I settled on a documentary about Antarctica. That was followed by a documentary about Argentina.

I fell asleep halfway through Argentina, and I woke up to Bob growling. Crap! Now what! I shut the television off, grabbed my gun, and sat very still, listening. Truth is, it would have been hard to hear anything over the pounding of my heart. I could have hada steam train go through my living room and probably wouldn’t have heard it.

Bob uncurled himself and sat up on the couch. He was still doing the soft growling, and he was looking toward the windows. I looked at the windows and could only see black glass. I was about to tell Bob there was nothing at the window whenBAM!Zoran appeared and hit the window with the butt of his Rambo knife.BAM, BAM, BAM.

Bob hurled himself off the couch and charged the window, barking and snarling. I was also off the couch. I planted my feet, pointed the gun at Zoran, placed the red dot over his heart, and pulled the trigger. The glass shattered around point of impact but didn’t break. What the heck! I crept closer to the window. The bullet was lodged in the glass. Zoran was nowhere to be seen.

I called Ranger. “Did you by any chance have bulletproof glass installed in my windows after this last firebombing?”

“Yes. I thought three firebombings were enough. The glass won’t stop everything, but it’ll stop a bottle rocket.”

“It’ll also stop a nine-millimeter bullet.”

Silence for a beat. “I’m assuming you didn’t get this information from Google.”

“Zoran was on my fire escape. He tried to smash my window with his knife butt, so I tried to shoot him, but the bullet got stuck in the glass.”

“Where was your red dot?”

“Over his heart.”

“That’s my girl,” Ranger said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m in better shape than my window.”

“I’ll get it replaced tomorrow. Do you want to spend the night here?”

“No. Zoran’s not going to come back tonight, and I’ve got Bob.”

I got off the phone and thought about what had just happened. Two things nagged at me. I’d aimed for Zoran’s heart because that was what I was taught to do. In this instance it wasn’t the right target to choose. If my bullet hadn’t been stopped by the window and I’d killed Zoran, there would be no hope of finding Julie Werly if she was still alive. And because Zoran was able to escape without injury, he might have gone looking for easier prey.

I went to bed with my clothes on. If Zoran somehow got in and I had to shoot him, I didn’t want to do it in my underwear. I slept with Bob pressed tight against me and my gun on the nightstand next to me. I had a nightmare that I was in an elevator that was out of control and eventually shot out of the top of an eighty-floor building. Aside from that my night was uneventful.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Bob woke me up at seven o’clock. The sun was shining. It was a glorious day, and Bob had to tinkle. I got dressed, strapped my gun on, shrugged into my sweatshirt, and laced up my sneakers. I stepped out the back door to my building and spotted a Rangeman SUV parked next to my car. This wasn’t a big surprise. It was Ranger in protective mode. Bob and I went over to say hello.

Hal was behind the wheel and Ramon was riding shotgun. Hal reached out the window to scratch Bob’s head and hand me an AirTag.

“Ranger wants you to wear this,” Hal said.

I dropped the AirTag into my sweatshirt pocket. “Have you been here all night?”

“No. We came on duty at six o’clock. Junior and Shank were here last night.”

“There’s a Rangeman named Shank?”

“Don’t ask,” Hal said.

“Tell Ranger it’s all good here. I’m going to walk Bob and then run a few errands. A security escort isn’t necessary.”

“I’ll pass it on,” Hal said.

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